Date of birth:

March 13th, 1922 (Girard, Erie County, United States)

Date of death:

March 5th, 1945 (Rheinberg, Germany)

Buried on:

Netherlands American Cemetery and Memorial
Plot: M. Row: 10. Grave: 5.

Service number:

O1017113

Nationality:

American (1776 - present, Republic)

US Army First Lieutenant Kenneth Raymond Robinson was born March 13th, 1922, in Girard, Erie County, Pennsylvania. His mother’s name is Rose Murphy and he had a brother named Harold and a sister, Lucille. After the death of his father he was raised by the Geiger family, who had a farm near Girard.
Ken was a good student in school. He had a nice personality, sense of humor, and was rather quiet. He was well received by his classmates and peers. He had a "presence", not rowdy or loud, but rather on the neat and quiet side.
He graduated from Girard Rice Avenue Union High School in 1940 and entered the army in August, 1940. Ken and three of his friends were assigned to the Army Air Corps. After basic training he was stationed at Langley Field in Virginia. Soon he had the rank of sergeant. While at Langley, he qualified for Officers Candidate School (OCS) at Fort Knox in Kentucky.
From the OCS building he had a view on the terrain where the 8th Armored Division Band held its parades. After finishing the OCS in early 1943, he was commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant and was sent to Camp Polk, Louisiana, where he served as an instructor with the 88th Cavalry Reconnaissance Squadron (Mechanized) of the 8th Armored Division untill he was transferred to D Company of the 36th Tank Battalion and sent to Europe at the end of 1944.
The 8th Armored Division was initially called the 'Iron Snake', but subsequently adopted the 'Thundering Herd' moniker and another, its war code name of 'Tornado'. From June 1942 until January 1943 it served as a training division. It trained cadre and replacements for many other armored divisions. While stationed at Fort Knox, the Division was the official military guardian of the United States Gold Vault.
Kenneth and the other men of Company D, 36th Tank battalion, disembarked at the ruined cities of Le Havre and Rouen at 5 January 1945. D-Company, as the battalion’s light tank company, was one of the very few to be solely equipped with the M24 Chaffee light tank, which was newly introduced to the ETO in January 1945.
At 4 February 1945, they arrived at Margraten, the Netherlands. Margraten was at that time the site of the 9th Army American Military Cemetery, which is presently known as the Netherlands American Cemetery and Memorial and which is now the final resting place of Kenneth. At the end of February they moved into Germany and at 5 March Company D met some very stiff resistance by the Germans who put up a fanatic defense at Rheinberg in an attempt to hold open the Wesel escape route over the Rhine river. At Rheinberg Company D lost many men and 17 of its 18 tanks. In this battle at Rheinberg Kenneth was killed by a shot in the head while trying to find some infantry help for his men.

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• Photo: Fallen not Forgotten
  
• - American Batlle Monument Comission
  - Fallen not Forgotten
  - Bert Caris

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